Just as the wild card race in the National League is unusually close this year, with six legitimate contenders vying for one playoff spot, so is the MVP race. There are real cases to be made for Chicago’s Derrek Lee, St. Louis’s Albert Pujols, Florida’s Miguel Cabrera, Atlanta’s Andruw Jones, and the Mets’ David Wright, as well as two starting pitchers, Houston’s Roger Clemens and the Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter.

For whatever reason, performance in May that prevents a team from having to chase the pennant down to the last days of the season seems not to count with voters, so Jones, Pujols, and Carpenter – who enjoy at least reasonably comfortable leads in their respective divisions – are going to lose some support. The same is even more true of Lee, who’s pretty clearly been the best player in the league this year, but whose Cubs don’t even look like a good shot to finish at .500; players on bad teams only win when there are no other candidates, and this year there are plenty.

In all likelihood, the winner will be either Pujols (having finished in the top three in each of the last three years, there’s a sense that he deserves to finally win the award) or whichever player carries his team to a playoff spot, as Anaheim’s Vladimir Guerrero did last year. For that reason, I suspect that the winner will be either Cabrera, Clemens, or Wright, or – should Washington or Philadelphia win the wild card – a mystery player who doesn’t now seem like a top contender, like Chad Cordero or Bobby Abreu.

Within this pool of candidates, Clemens has been the best player. His 11-6 record obscures the astonishing fact that he’s taken a no-decision in seven different starts in which he’s gone at least seven innings and allowed two or fewer runs, and that he’s taken the loss in another three such games. His incredible 1.51 ERA is one of the most ridiculous statistics in modern baseball history. He’s allowed about 45 fewer runs than an average pitcher would have, had more impact on his team than any other player, and has six starts remaining; should he pitch in those as he has so far this year, the Astros will have to work hard to miss the playoffs, especially given their relatively light schedule.

Between Cabrera and Wright, it’s more or less a toss-up. These two are having virtually unprecedented seasons for 22-year-olds; the only players who have hit as well at such a young age are Pujols, Ted Williams, Eddie Matthews, Mel Ott, and Al Kaline. In picking between them, you have a classic defense vs. offense question, as Cabrera is a better hitter – he has 20 points of batting average and 50 of slugging average on Wright, while playing in a tougher hitter’s park-but plays left field. Wright, meanwhile, is a third baseman and a good one, and himself one of the best hitters in the league.

As of right now, the tiebreaker would go to Wright on the strength of his lights-out hitting in the second half. His .373 BA/.444 OBA/.640 SLG line since the All-Star break ranks with those of Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, and Manny Ramirez among the very best in the game, and has been the single most important factor in the Mets’ climb up the wild-card standings. Should Wright continue to hit like that for the rest of September, and should the Mets actually make the playoffs, he might well become the first MVP in team history.

Because I think the Astros are, due to their easy September, something near a lock to win the wild card, my money is on a Pujols vs. Clemens showdown. Voters, I suspect, will argue in Jesuitical fashion that Carpenter (19-4,2.29 ERA) deserves the Cy Young because the job of a pitcher is to win, but that Clemens deserves the MVP because he’s been more valuable than Carpenter in some vague fashion apparently unrelated to being a better pitcher. This argument will only gain potency if Clemens, as seems likely, drives his team into the postseason with a 5-0 record and a sub-2.00 ERA down the stretch.

Does this seem an absurd scenario? It may be, but such are the logical corners voters are pushed into when they start giving out awards according to criteria other than who is the best player. Were they to do so, Derrek Lee could start fixing up room on his mantel for a big plaque right now. He may or may not be the most valuable player in the league according to the arcane and unwritten rules that require a player to play for a team that’s good – but not too good, lest he get too much help in building a winner – and that he do his damage at the last possible minute. But Lee does happen to have been better than anyone else in the senior circuit this year, and deserves to be recognized for it.